Bugge Wesseltoft is one of the movers and shakers of Scandinavian nu-jazz, renowned for his Jazzland label, for his "New Conception of Jazz" (NCOJ) tours and recordings, and his energetic collaborations with Nils Petter Molvaer, Sidsel Endresen and Brazilian singer-songwriter Joyce. Jazzland's roster includes Audun Kleive, Eivind Aarset and Beady Belle as well as his own NCOJ releases. It is alleged that a certain European label boss once dismissed Wesseltoft for being "too vulgar", but that's OK: there's plenty of Europhile jazz out there that's too tasteful at the expense of ideas and feeling. Wesseltoft's best work has the deadpan grooviness of stripped-pine Headhunters: cracking beats with just enough space in the cracks to let the jazz seep through; sneaky pantonal keyboard lines and vamps; loose-limbed horn solos; big ensemble blasts. An overlay of artificial voice samples and digital electronica keeps everything determinedly turn-of-the-century, both in the studio (1996's New Conception of Jazz) - and live - (2001's Moving).

Film Ing (Jazzland, £12.99) has all the Bugge hallmarks: several bits of NCOJ hustle (Skog, Film Ing), a moving number with wordless vocals from Dhafer Youssef (Hope) and dark, rubbery electro (Frik). Hi Is?, featuring saxophonist Vidar Johansen, harks back to earlier albums, and a couple of tracks (the clubby Oh Ye and the more spacious El) feature overdubs by US saxophonist Joshua Redman, who sounds completely at home in the crinkly edges of Wesseltoft's sound-world. Collaborations bring out the best in Wesseltoft - as heard on Joyce's superb Just a Little Bit Crazy (Far Out) from last summer. Film Ing's tracks with friends and guests make the studio wizardry of solo tracks such as Piano and Indie seem a bit unnecessary.

Maria Maria / Ultimo Trem (Far Out, £16.99) is the music, largely composed by Brazilian songwriter Milton Nascimento, for two ballets by Grupo Corpo. Maria Maria, which deals with slavery in Brazil, dates from 1976, while Ultimo Trem was made in 1980. These are not scores in the conventional sense, but sequences of music created in the process of recording with musicians such as percussionists Nana Vasconcelos, Paulinho Braga and Robertinho Silva, bassist Luiz Alves and guitarist Toninho Horta.

Nascimento, now in his 60s, recalls the sessions with amusement: "In the studio, I'm the only one who knows how the music is going to come out. Choreographers go crazy, because they don't know what's going on."

Parts for voices include Nascimento's own heavenly falsetto, spoken word and a several singers taking different roles. The words for both works were by journalist Fernando Brant, whose newspaper article about the disastrous closing of a railway line in the north-east sparked Ultimo Trem (Last Train). Much of the music will be familiar to Nascimento admirers, but they'll still find plenty to delight them, from the sheer beauty of melodies such as Maria, Maria and Encontros e Despedidas (Meetings and Farewells) to the edgy rhythms and wordless vocals of Trabalhos (Works) and the double-tracked experimentation of O Velho (The Old Man).

Ponta de Areia (Sand Edge), from Ultimo Trem, which appeared earlier on Wayne Shorter's Native Dancer, is the tune once popularised and renamed as Brazilian Rhyme by Earth, Wind and Fire - the band still play it in their live act. Santos Catolicos X Candomble (Catholic Saints Vs Candomble), which deals with the way the African slaves retained their black saints under new Catholic names, is made of many fragments, including Raca (Race), memorably featured on the glossy 1976 album Milton.

Some tracks sound as if they were thrown together in a hurry, on a tiny budget - not unusual for music for contemporary dance. The performance of Roupa Nova (New Clothes), for example, is a bit scrappy and unfinished - they should have done another take. But let's get this into perspective. Even this hitherto unreleased, slightly substandard moment in Brazilian recording history has more life in it than, say, anything by Abba.